In the midst of a health crisis, companies are embarking on a race for cash. "Some large companies have started to devalue the cash of their small suppliers for fear of running out in the coming days," deplores Thursday on Europe 1 Pierre Pelouzet, national mediator of companies, who co-co-ordinates the crisis committee on payment terms that have just been created.

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Faced with the Covid-19 health crisis, the problem of payment delays becomes particularly thorny. So much so that a crisis committee on payment terms was set up at the start of last week, in conjunction with the Ministry of the Economy. "Unfortunately, we have seen companies that have started to make cash on the backs of small businesses," reports Thursday on Europe 1 Pierre Pelouzet, the national mediator of businesses who co-co-chairs the crisis committee.

"It can have a cascading effect that can destroy dozens and dozens of companies"

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Pierre Pelouzet first recalled that not all companies had behaved in the same way in the face of the epidemic, also citing "large companies which started to pay very quickly". "We must congratulate them, they are pioneers, they are people who understand what economic solidarity is," he added. For the mediator, it is imperative to "pay small businesses now, it is now that we need money."

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But Pierre Pelouzet above all retains that "certain large companies have started to rob the cash of their small suppliers for fear of running out in the days to come." "It is incomprehensible. It is absolutely terrible because it can have a cascading effect which can destroy dozens and dozens of companies," he said.

"We saw arriving in two weeks the equivalent of three months of referrals"

Hence the creation of a crisis committee, which brings together all the players in the economy and employers, to deal with the wave of referrals from companies that were struggling to get paid. "We saw arriving in two weeks the equivalent of three months of referrals," testified Pierre Pelouzet, who encourages business leaders to send information to their representatives on "good and bad payers".

The crisis committee will then be responsible for "intervening directly" with these bad payers, that is to say with their president and chief financial officer. Referrals are also possible on the mediator's website.